5 Facts About Russell Brand's 'Arthur' Costar

Greta Gerwig is winning rave reviews in the comedy remake.

The real star of Russell Brand’s Arthur? Greta Gerwig, who fills in for Liza Minelli as his love interest in the new remake (out Friday).

Here are 5 things you need to know about the actress, who is winning rave reviews:

1. She got her start in indies.

While a senior at NYC’s Barnard College, she starred in Joe Swanberg’s LOL. The film was part of the "mumblecore" movement - low budget, largely improvised movies shot on video. She later teamed up with Swanberg on other projects, including Nights and Weekend, which she co-wrote and co-directed.

2. She’s been called the ‘definitive screen actress of her generation.’

Gerwig’s indie work caught the attention of director Noah Baumbauch, who cast her in his 2010 Ben Stiller dramedy Greenberg, her first “mainstream” debut. At the time, a New York Times critic noted, "Ms. Gerwig, most likely without intending to be anything of the kind, may well be the definitive screen actress of her generation.” She scored a best lead actress nomination at the Spirit Awards.

3. She admires Sandra Bullock’s career choices.

“I'm drawn to people who seem really happy about the choices they've made and don't seem like they wish they were somebody else,” she has said. “I don't feel like Sandra wishes she were, say, a Shakespearean thespian.”

4. She’s had six films at SXSW!

“I know. That’s a lot. I’ve run my course,” she told the New York Times this year as she debuted the drama The Dish & the Spoon. “I’m going to be the Orson Welles of micro-budget cinema. I’ve already had my peak and now I’m just gonna get fat.”

5. She worries she’ll be ‘on the street’ soon.

She next appears in director Whit Stillman’s long-awaited feature, Damsels in Distress. Still, she has said her rise in the film world sometimes baffles her. "I still don't feel like I have committed myself to it," she recently said in Paper magazine. "I love it and I'm super-grateful for it, but I still don't believe that it's really happening. I sounds so weird to say. I told my friend Sarah, I have a very real, constant fear that I'll wind up living on the street. She was like, "That is not an appropriate fear for someone in your position to have. And even if nothing works out, you won't be living on the street."